Mancante Terra is a place of mystery, more so than any other place within The Concord’s grasp - not only is it a place once beset by strange creatures and curses by The Drowned, but it also remains tainted by the worship of false gods. It is, therefore, a place that many of The Concord have not yet formed concrete thoughts upon.
Will it continue to be a warfront, passed back and forth in ownership between The Concord and their Drowned enemies? Will it become a home for those from across The Concord that have lost so much? Or will it be dragged back to the depths below, to leave a gaping hole in The Concord’s already wounded side?
Only time will tell.
No Window Was Blind, nor Courtyard Empty
Mancante Terra, divided now between The Drowned and The Concord, remains one of the largest regions to fly the Concordian Sigil. Like its brother across the bay in Bolsterlee, it is a land of winter storms, sun-beaten summers, crisp days, and cold, clear nights. But where Bolsterlee bears the scars of frontier wars and violent indignance, Mancante Terra was never meant to be tamed—it was a frontier by design, a place between places, a land of forgetting and hidden remembrance.
The Bayfolk who once lived here have long since vanished, their history swallowed by misfortune and defeat. What remains is the role Mancante Terra played for the Artebazzani of Posta Lerona. Wedged between the more vital cities of Lerona Mere and Vidania, it was useful only in its in-betweenness. Too exposed to be a heartland, too sheltered to be a battleground, it became a borderland of hard labor, quiet conflict, and those who wished to be left alone. Among them were the priests of the Gods of Artebazzan.
Exiled by the ascendant Church of Niccolo, yet wealthy enough to seek their own salvation, they came to this far-flung corner of the empire in search of redemption. Here, on the Plateau of the Gods, they would commune with their deities, amass power, and one day return, clad in raiments of purity and wrath, to make the world tremble. In their vengeful ambition, they built Mandrianos, a city of stone at the foot of the mountains.
And there they rotted.
The laborers who built Mandrianos abandoned it once the work was done. Its neighbors, more concerned with surviving the Valleyfolk or Imperial economics than pleasing exiled priests, had no interest in another hand demanding tithe. When the priests disappeared, looters came—Bravos too late for the Mercenary Wars, eager for easy plunder. Then came silence. The streets of Mandrianos emptied, its temples left to crumble beneath the weight of their own unanswered prayers. Now, only weeds move through its ruins, and only forgotten gods whisper through its halls, pleading for someone—anyone—to remember.
Such is the nature of Mancante Terra: a land where things go to be forgotten.
To the north, past the Plateau of the Gods, lie the bones of the Bayfolk. Their coastal forts, crushed by the Artebazzani, pushed them westward—only to be crushed again. Among the chestnuts and oaks of Boisombre, they made their last stand. The villages they left behind became hunting parks for Artebazzani nobility. Their sacred circles, once places of ritual and remembrance, were repurposed as nothing more than navigational markers. A wilderness carefully curated by the wealthy and powerful, resting atop the graves of the broken and banished.
To the east, stretching toward the bay, is the Marepato, a sea of grass cut through by streams from the La Lungo Elsa. It is a place fit for farming, but little else. With eyes closed and wind on your face, you could mistake it for Strivington, far to the east—until you open them to find the warren-streets of Loricazzo or the gray-sand beach of Korrence, both emptied save for the Concordian soldiers garrisoned there. Further inland, the famed wayhouse La Bevanda Dei stands as resolute as ever. It continues the great Concordian tradition of military commanders occupying alehouses for what are surely very legitimate reasons.
This is what remains of Concordian-held Mancante Terra.
Perhaps it will be another Vassertal, held for a few uncertain breaths before being abandoned to our enemies. But for the people of The Concord, it is hope. Yet hope does not make it ours.
To the south, the land grows sodden and salt-choked. Three rivers feed into the tidal marshes of La Dove Dormani, mixing fresh water with the whitecaps of the bay. Once, this was simply the most miserable stretch of the region to travel through. Now, it is Drowned Bulwark. Something lurks within its waters—something wrong. The creatures that float here are twisted, their forms shifting, their mouths whispering a song carried through the current. Even the eels sing it now.
Beyond the drowned marshes, past the enemy lines, lie the sunken swamps of Sylvestrelli Mare. If Mancante Terra is wild, Sylvestrelli Mare is gentle, silent. The twin wildwoods of La Orichia Stall and Foresta Delle Vande shelter lost settlements, once the final gateway into Vidania. Fiari, a town that once rivaled Loricazzo, even flirted with independence in its heyday. Cologna Mia, meant to be a fortress to defend Barbariano against Posta Lerona, was never finished. Now, the trees keep their secrets.
For the first time in seven years, enough of Mancante Terra is held by The Concord to be called ours.
But whose will it be?
Lerona Mere, with its inherited conquest, lays claim through history—these abandoned towns still bear Artebazzani names, and exiles in cramped tenements dream of returning home. Yet it was Lerona Mere that lost Mancante Terra to the Illsevir. Do the defeated deserve to reclaim what they failed to defend?
Perhaps it will become a new seaside duchy for Bordevar, a kingdom without a king. A beacon of hope should the Onyx Aristocracy break the line in Weiland.
Or will these trees shelter new havens for The Weald? If the people of the Baronies step beyond their cursed woodlands, will they still be the same people?
Perhaps The Iron Valley and Andash will make their claim. With their weight in the Senate, they could seize Mancante Terra for themselves—another step toward a future ruled by the rising empires of the past.
Or perhaps Mancante Terra will simply be forgotten again, lost once more beneath the trees and the grass and the cold, indifferent sky.
As so many things have been.
Game Information
The Concord has reclaimed three of the five territories of Mancante Terra. As such, the region now flies a Concordian flag. The Senate will vote to grant Mancante Terra to one of the Realms of The Concord on the first night of the Summit.
There will be a great many decisions and opportunities for the new Senator of Mancante Terra as every realm has interest in seeing the region flourish. They will have to weigh risk and growth against each other.
Investments may move to any of the three new Mancante Terra territories, however there is currently no additional incentive to do so. Much of this will rely on the decisions of the new Senator of Mancante Terra.
In addition, Civil Service prospectors confirm that there is Mithril to be found in the Plateau of The Gods.
You Are Neither Dead nor Dying, What Is Your Purpose Here?
With the War Chamber’s initial work done, Mandrianos has fallen to The Concord. While the soldiers of the Legion tell anyone who will listen that this poisoned chalice is best taken warily, the Civil Service ekes out a report on what The Concord has actually gained. Across Mancante Terra there are reports of hearty fields, empty settlements ripe for the taking, and verdant wilderness. But in Mandrianos, matters are far more concerning.
The city itself is abandoned. Concordian forces found no hiding refugees or last holdouts within the city. Records from Lerona Mere indicate that there were very few people living in Mandrianos before it was lost years ago, and even then only on the outskirts. For the legacy of the city is larger than even its greatest temple.
This legacy is well known, a cautionary tale told in Legend City. A hundred years ago, when the Cult of Niccolo ascended to great power within the Artebazzani Empire. While they did not drive out the faith of the Old Gods of Artebazzan, it was hard for those who once were greatest priest-nobles of Artebazzan to accept their fallen state. The most influential took their divine dividends and fled to the new colony of New Cordisia. There they would build a new temple city, a place for the true faith of Artebazzan to grow and reclaim its birthright. This city was Mandrianos.
And while this divine resurgence never came to pass, the city itself was built. Vast promenades and massive temples. Colleges for priests and divine warriors sat across from amphitheatres and palatial homes for the most powerful heathens. Rumour has it that the city never truly grew into its exaggerated scale, that many of its streets were empty even at its height, a monument to vainglorious hubris.
Eventually the city was abandoned, its priests perished with time and vengeful Spheric hunters. Mandrianos became a cursed place, picked clean of its golden idols and left to gather dust.
Surrounding the city, on other parts of the plateau it rests atop, are small burgs where those common people who served the priests would live. Tiny unnamed towns of simple houses and common halls in the Artebazzani style. Before the arrival of the Illsevir it was these settlements that were still inhabited by the kinds of common people found across the world; farmers, hunters, simple craftsfolk. The Concord has found these settlements in reasonable condition save for the maladies of time and lack of care.
But this was the Mandrianos that was given to the Illsevir, now The Drowned. These stewards of the deeps have wrought some unknown curse upon the already cursed city. While the method and the madness of such an act remains unknown to The Concord, its effect is more obvious. Mandrianos is sinking into itself. Cloying mist rises from the cobbles in the dark of night, water that moves through the city grows foul and frothy with violence, the great foundations of the temples crumble into algae and mould. The basements and subterranean chambers flood from their walls and things move in the drains and gutters. It is unclear if the curse has taken root and we will be the audience of its final effect, or if The Concord has forestalled the worst of its perversion through our invasion.
Only time will tell.
Game Information
The Concord has claimed the city of Mandrianos during its recent campaign against The Drowned. The city has many secrets and mysteries within it, but also great dangers. Rumours spread far and wide across The Concord but even treasure hunters are hesitant.
There will be decisions regarding The Sinking City of Mandrianos for the Senator of Mancante Terra, The Heterodox, and the Council of Six.
These Stones Remain Their Monument
Thinking longingly of the clean, dry socks that awaited her upon her eventual return to the wayhouse, Niamh continued to trudge through the waterlogged moorland up to the circle of stones on the horizon, glad of the hood atop her head. The Ritters that walked with her, whilst mostly silent, still let out the occasional huff of what she presumed was discontent, their clanking armour now glistening with raindrops.
If she squinted, she could almost pretend that she was back in Bolsterlee, the springy moss beneath her feet soaked through from the rain. The weather was the same; the sky still bluer than most, despite the gray storm clouds scattered across it. From this direction, the landscape was the same; green upon green, bordered by the mist-covered mountains. If she squinted, and therefore reduced the stone circle to a blurry shadow, it was like home.
But, the closer and closer that herself and the soldiers came to the structure, the more and more difficult it was to do so.
It seemed like the air was slightly thicker, the closer they trudged - like the rain in the air was growing to take up more space as each breath became heavier. It could be the altitude; Niamh could barely catch her breath when she trekked up to Goddream Pinnacle for the first time. Or it could simply be the walk; they had been traipsing through the moor, up to their shins in saturated grass and heather, for hours. Niamh knew that neither of those were the case, but also knew that a bit of wishful thinking wouldn’t hurt.
The monoliths were closer and clearer, even in the rain that was pelting down now - what had once been a distant, indistinguishable mass of stone was now clear and distinct. Distinct in a way that it shouldn’t have been, especially not in such a formation.
Niamh clambered up over the lip of the hill and stared at them, partially in awe, but mostly in confusion.
The six behemoths jutted out from the earth, each rising into the sky to tower over the trees in the distance. They were clearly not man-made; even prior to their understanding of The Spheres, Niamh couldn’t imagine Artebazzan creating pillars with such inconsistent shapes, textures, or colours. But, surely they couldn’t be natural?
Like the fingers of a great god clawing its way from beneath the earth they reached, they curled in towards the centre, all at slightly different angles, and each very clearly and very distinctly entirely different rocks. One, not unlike the foundations of an old volcano, next to a marble of pure white flecked with gray, sitting across from a sibling of sandstone, sheeted with reds and purples. There was not a single one the same as another, but they were all alike in their wrongness.
As she stepped into the circle for the first time, all seemed to quiet; the pouring rain, the clanking of armour, the crunching of thousands of bone-white pebbles beneath her feet. Despite the density of the air, it felt as if something was missing. Like there were sounds that used to be here, long ago, that had faded into a silence unable to be broken. Sounds that, in their absence, had taken all that was and would be.
Game Information:
The following investments cannot be based in Boisombre:
- Leyline
- Mine (Forgesteel, Sun's Iron)
Further reading at Winds of the World - Autumn 225